Arabic version: مناصرون يدينون تعليقات هانسون بشأن العنف الأسري

According to SBS News, advocates and experts have criticised One Nation leader Pauline Hanson after she described domestic violence as a “two-way street” and said women experiencing abuse “shouldn’t put up with it”.

In a Wednesday interview on Brisbane’s 4BC radio, Hanson said domestic violence was “wrong” but attributed the crisis to the “pressures of living”. She said women could “lose their cool as well” and that society was under more pressure than it had been previously. Hanson also said that if women were being abused by men, they should not put up with it.

Writer, lawyer and advocate Tarang Chawla called the suggestion “terrible advice”. His sister, Nikita Chawla, was stabbed to death by her husband, Parminder Singh, in 2015; Singh was sentenced to 22 years in prison for her murder. Chawla said his sister had tried to do what Hanson suggested, adding that responsibility lay with the person who was abusive or violent.

Brittany Higgins called Hanson’s remarks “atrocious” and accused her of normalising “victim blaming rhetoric”. Nicole Yade, chief executive of the Women’s and Girls’ Emergency Centre, said telling victims to “just leave” overlooked behaviour that can keep victim-survivors trapped, including remorse, “love bombing”, gifts and promises to change. She also said people could not leave if there was nowhere safe to go.

Hanson’s comments followed remarks by fellow One Nation politician Barnaby Joyce on the same station, when he said people should walk out of the house before they “lose your top”. SBS News reported that, in NSW, the Domestic Violence Death Review Team found 300 women and 75 men had been killed by a current or former intimate partner over 26 years. In nearly three-quarters of those deaths, the murder victim was the abuser.